Patrick Houston, CEO of cloudbase3 (San Francisco)

I have to confess, I was jaded when my startup was accepted into the Founders Space. During the time I’ve been at this, I’ve encountered many incubators, accelerators, pitch competitions, and meetups out there, all professing to help entrepreneurs one way or another. Once our month-long Founders Space stint began, I found myself pleasantly surprised, because we found help alright, not just in words or promises but in the program’s structure, substance, and especially the instruction.

I was especially impressed with instructors Scott Gray and Steve Austin. Of course, they knew what they were talking about. Each one owns down-in-the-trenches experience. They’re still practicing what they preach. They brought an uncommon energy to every session. But here’s what I cherish most: It didn’t matter to them if we short or long on experience, if our ideas seemed sound or specious, or if our pitches were smooth or they sucked. To each and every one of the entrepreneurs in our cohort they provided equal portions of time, attention, and care. The managed to find a measure of promise in each and every one us, just as a devoted public school teacher might do. A little bit of belief goes a long way in the often grueling and often cut-throat process of bringing a venture to life.

I was also impressed with the depth, breadth, and regularly of the content we received by email each and every day during the program and beyond. It managed to touch on just about every facet of building a business — from the hard-numbers stuff like finance to the soft skills around leadership.